Herodotus and the North Carolina Oral Narrative Tradition PDF
Preview Herodotus and the North Carolina Oral Narrative Tradition
Histos () - HERODOTUS AND THE NORTH CAROLINA ORAL NARRATIVE TRADITION [Editor’s Note: See the response by John Marincola, Histos () -] As scholars who live among books, we find it difficult to imagine the cultural world and the intellectual activity of people to whom books represented a very small part of their way of knowing the world, and a relatively new way to communicate with others or to preserve one’s knowledge. In studying the beginnings of literature in the Greek world, our focus has been on the de- velopment of the epic tradition and its fixation in written texts, and more re- cently on the culture that lies behind the creation and performance of lyric poetry and elegy. The oral pre-history of Greek prose has been relatively neglected, although the work of Aly early in the century and of others like Lang, Murray, Thomas, and Evans on oral tradition and Herodotus in the last decade have indicated more work to be done. However we are still far from placing Herodotus and his work securely in their cultural milieu. It is here where I believe some comparative study of the quite different narrative tradition of the North Carolina mountains can be helpful. Recent work on early Greek oral tradition has been especially influenced by the work of Vansina and Finnegan on African oral traditions. These tra- ditions have been especially useful in establishing principles of oral historical memory and recognizing the importance of genre, purpose, and setting in the transmission of oral history. On the other hand, the differences of lan- guage and the difficulty of imagining the African cultural environment rep- W. Aly, Volksmärchen, Sage und Novelle bei Herodot und seinen Zeitgenossen: Eine Untersuchung über die volkstümlichen Elemente der altgriechischen Prosaerzählung (Göttingen ), reprinted with additions by L. Huber, Göttingen ). For recent work see Mabel Lang, Herodotean Narrative and Discourse (Cambrige MA ), O.Murray, ‘Herodotus and Oral History,’ in Achaemenid History II. The Greek Sources ( workshop) (Leiden ), -, H. Sancisi- Weerdenburg, ‘Herodotus en de Meden: Historiciteit en orale traditie’, Lampas () -, R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge ), J. Gould, Herodotus (London and New York ), M. B. Sakellariou, Between Memory and Oblivion: The Transmission of Early Greek Historical Traditions (Paris [= Meletemata ]), J. A. S. Evans, Herodotus. Explorer of the Past. Three Essays (Princeton ) -; R. Tho- mas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge ); R. V. Munson, ‘Herodotus’ Use of Prospective Sentences and the Story of Rhampsinitus and the Thief in the Histo- ries,’ AJP () -. See especially J. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison ), R. Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (Cambridge ). Copyright © Philip Stadter Philip Stadter resent serious barriers to the effective exploitation of the material. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I discovered that my favorite summer retreat in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, Beech Mountain, was also the locale of a well-known and increasingly studied American oral storytel- ling tradition. The dean of American tale-tellers, Ray Hicks, lived on the other side of the mountain, could be visited and seen, heard, and—apart from a rather distinctive Southern Appalachian dialect—understood in his native environment. Contact with this contemporary oral tradition and the scholarship which studies it has made me consider in a different way He- rodotus’ place in his oral tradition. At the outset, however, I should say that there are vast differences be- tween these story-tellers and Herodotus. They provide useful analogies, but the parallels must be carefully scrutinized. The taletellers of Beech Mt. and vicinity all are descended from one fa- mous storyteller, Council Harmon (-), but their ancestry goes back further, to English settlers of the mid-eighteenth century. David Hicks is said to have emigrated from England around . Council Harmon, David Hicks’ great-grandson, had fifteen children by two wives, and an exceptional ability to recount tales. The families descended from him farm a rocky and See especially the essays collected in Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Tales and their Tellers, ed. W. B. McCarthy (Chapel Hill ). This collection is an ex- tremely valuable introduction to the study of Jack tales, containing both stories tran- scribed from different tellers and essays analyzing various features of transmission and performance. See also North Carolina Folklore Journal , (Sept. ) -, a special Jack Tales issue. Other Jack tales may be found in Donald Davis, Jack Always Seeks his Fortune (Little Rock ); Barbara McDermitt, ‘Storytelling and a Boy named Jack,’ NC Folklore Journal () -; Cheryl Oxford, ‘The Storyteller as Craftsman: Stanley Hicks Tell- ing ‘Jack and the Bull’’, NC Folklore Journal () - and ‘The Storyteller as Sha- man: Ray Hicks telling his Jack tales,’ ibid. () -; Henry Glassie, ‘Three South- ern Mountain Jack Tales,’ Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin () -, C. L. Perdue, Outwitting the Devil: Jack Tales from Wise County, Virginia (Santa Fe ). On the importance of studying the oral component of prose narrative, see Alan Dundes, ‘Texture, Text, and Context,’ in his book Interpreting Folklore (Bloomington ). For a brief introduction to Southern story-telling, see S. Bronner s.v. Story-telling in The Encyclopedia of Southern Cul- ture (Chapel Hill ) -. His exact origin is uncertain: some say southern England or London, but most Eng- lish emigration to the North Carolina mountains in this period came from the north of England, and entered North Carolina from the valley of Virginia after . See W. F. H. Nicolaisen, ‘The Teller and the Tale: Storytelling on Beech Mountain,’ in Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Tales and their Tellers, ed. W. B. McCarthy (Chapel Hill ) -, at -. His account is based on J. W. Thompson, ‘The Origin of the Hicks Family Tradition,’ NC Folklore Journal () - and J. H. Hicks, M. Hicks, and B. B. Hicks, The Hicks Families of Western North Carolina (Watauga River Lines) (Boone ). Herodotus and the North Carolina Oral Tradition mountainous land (Beech Mt., where many live, rises ft., and is not many miles from Mt. Mitchell, the highest mountain in the Eastern half of the U.S.) The fame of these storytellers rests on their repertory of Jack tales, that is, tales about a good-natured but clever young hero named Jack, known to many of us as the hero of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Jack the Giantkiller’. These stories, a repertory of about traditional Märchen, have been pre- served and passed on by these farm families for over two hundred years in the cultural backwater of the North Carolina mountains. They show surpris- ing similarities with the same stories known from Ireland, from eighteenth century English chapbooks, and from a contemporary tinker in Scotland. Jack tales can be traced as far back as the early fifteenth century. Their con- tinued existence on Beech Mountain indicates that oral traditions can be preserved over long periods in an isolated society which is literate but uses writing for limited purposes. While their fame rests on Jack tales, these men and women regularly tell a wide variety of tales: tall tales, personal experience narratives, historical or family anecdotes from the Civil War or the early settlement of the moun- tains, ghost stories, and humorous tales (commonly called by the German name, Schwanks). Ray Hicks tells stories of the early history of Watauga County alongside stories of his own adventures courting his wife, working as a mechanic, or picking galax during the depression of the nineteen thirties. See Carl Lindahl, ‘Jacks: The Name, the Tales, the American Traditions,’ in McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, xiii-xxxiv; for the Scottish tinker, Barbara Rice Damron McDermitt, A Comparison of a Scottish and American Storyteller and their Märchen Repertoires (Ph.D. Edinburgh ). On the tale genres employed on Beech Mt., and in much of the Appalachians, see McDermitt, Comparison, -. Cf. also T. E. Barden, ed., Virginia Folk Legends (Char- lottesville and London ), an unusually varied collection of legends collected -, many of them dealing with historical material, though of dubious accuracy. I heard the story of ‘Johnny Two-Shirt [a native American] and the Outlaws,’ on a visit to Hicks’ house, October , when he also told me of hunting trips, combining accurate reminiscences with tall tales. He seems to have a limitless store of snake and of ghost stories. Several of his non-Jack tales are recorded on his cassette tape, Jack Lives! (June Appal Recordings, Whitesburg KY, ) and on the videotape, Tall Tales of the Blue Ridge (Eastern National Park and Monument Assn., Asheville ). More are found in Robert Isbell, The Last Chivaree: The Hicks Family of Beech Mountain (Chapel Hill ), a re-creation of the world of the Hicks family. Charlotte Ross, a Professor of Folklore at Appalachian State University Boone NC, learned from her family and other informants many historical narratives, including the story of one family’s journey from Philadelphia down the valley of Virginia ca. —the story was tied to distinctive andirons carried from England at great cost, which still remain in the family—and that of Dorcas Henry, who brought back to Georgia the body of her husband Tom, a Union soldier, from the battle of Chickamauga () Philip Stadter Hicks shifts easily from one type of story to another, to illustrate a point as he is talking, to answer a question, or just to entertain. Thus I would argue that although the stories which are most studied are their Jack Tales, the modes of storytelling used for their historical and non-historical tales are similar, and can fairly be compared with those found employed by Herodo- tus. Broad as their repertoire is, it nevertheless lacks many of the most im- portant features of Herodotean history. The North Carolina storytellers show no interest in geography, ethnography, or customs, or in the histories of other peoples. Their world is an isolated one, essentially the mountains where they live, with little mention of cities, or national or state government, except as source of troubles: soldiers, the draft, taxes. In the Jack stories Jack travels widely, but rarely reaches any place which is different from the mountain landscape of the narrator. They lack, therefore, Herodotus’ dis- tinctive notion of comparative history and ethnography. Although the mountains were settled by people from several stocks, Scotch-Irish, English, German, and Welsh, their world now is homogeneous, except for intruding government officials and tourists from the flatlands. Because of the interests of folklorists, moreover, the stories which have been recorded and studied are not for the most part historical narratives, of the kind which set Herodo- tus apart from earlier mythographers and genealogists, but the Jack tales, that is, traditional Märchen. Nevertheless, from these storytellers and their stories we can learn a great deal about the nature of oral performance and the nature of storytelling. Here I must make another preliminary statement. My underlying hy- pothesis is that in the text of Herodotus’ Histories we possess a written text which builds upon the foundation of the logoi which Herodotus regularly performed orally. This written version creates a new genre by expanding, joining, and interrelating the logoi, and by adding other material such as lists and catalogues, but arises naturally out of the oral logoi which are at its heart. That the present text was conceived as a written document is I think clear, but its basis in oral performance is also clear. The text we have is not a transcription of an oral performance or performances, but is based on sto- ries conceived and developed for oral performance and in an oral perform- ance tradition. I will not attempt to argue this hypothesis here, except to the extent that the comparison I am making may make it seem more plausible. As is evident from many signs, most simply the occasional use of γράφω to refer to the work of the author (see J. E. Powell, Lexicon to Herodotus, s.v. and s.v. συγγράφω). See W. A. Johnson, GRBS () - and H. Erbse, ‘Sieben Bemerkungen zu Herodot,’ in Ausgewählte Schriften zur Klassischen Philologie (Berlin and New York ) -, esp. pp. -. Herodotus and the North Carolina Oral Tradition Despite various ancient references, I do not think that Herodotus ever per- formed before an audience by reading from a written text, a practice quite incompatible with what we know of the fifth century. Here I will address the circumstances under which Herodotus’ stories and researches might have been orally presented, and how the above hypothesis may illuminate some aspects of the prehistory and present form of his text. Singers and Storytellers The ballads and songs of the Appalachian mountains are well-known. They were collected early in this century, and became popular in recordings, on the radio, and in concerts. One of the most famous singers was Jane Hicks Gentry, who recorded sixty-four folk-songs and ballads in . She had started singing to entertain family and friends, but her fame grew and she eventually performed before large audiences. Her daughter Maud Gentry Long also was a singer and recorded a number of ballads and songs. But only gradually did folklorists begin to record prose tales known to these women. The first major collection was recorded by Richard Chase in and published in . Jane Gentry was a granddaughter of Council Harmon, and a bearer of the traditional Jack tales he told. She was a story- teller as well as a singer, accustomed to entertain in both mediums. This striking interrelation of prose and sung culture seems to be a fundamental feature of the Beech Mountain tradition. Most of these people were not pro- fessional performers: songs and tales alike were offered as a contribution to group activities. They provided entertainment at family and church gather- ings, or when doing repetitive work, especially in the home. Jane Gentry and her daughter Maud Long became famous as singers. Frank Proffitt, Sr. See Erbse, ‘Sieben Bemerkungen.’ Many have suggested that Herodotus read to his audience from a written text. Cf. e.g. J. Gould, Herodotus (London and New York ) . There is no reliable evidence for such reading from a written text in the fifth century, when poets, dramatists, and sophists all performed without a written text, although read- ing became common in later times. On this question see L. Canfora, ‘Il ‘ciclo’ storico,’ Belfagor () -; J. Gould, Herodotus, -; W. Rösler, ‘Die ‘Selbsthistorisierung’ des Autors: zur Stellung Herodotus zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit,’ Philologus () -; R. V. Munson, ‘Herodotus’ Use of Prospective Sentences and the Story of Rhampsinitus and the Thief in the Histories,’ AJP () -. I will not discuss another topic of interest, the form or underlying structure of the Beech Mountain stories in comparison with that of Hero- dotean stories. Bill Ellis, ‘The Gentry-Long Tradition and the Roots of Revivalism. Maude Gentry Long,’ in McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, -. R. Chase, The Jack Tales (New York ) Philip Stadter was best known as a banjo player and singer (his version of the ballad ‘Tom Dula’, based on a true story from the mountains, was the source of the Kingston Trio’s ‘Tom Dooley,’ which became an international hit), as is his son Frank Jr. Stanley Hicks made his fame as a country singer. Marshall Ward, the major source for Chase’s initial book on Jack tales, learned the tales from his father, who had made his own banjo and dulcimer, and regu- larly entertained the family with his playing and singing. All these men and women were or are also active storytellers; all are descendants of Council Harmon and bearers of the Jack tales he told. Ray Hicks, the most famous of this family of storytellers, is not known as a singer, although he likes to play his harmonica and sing a song between stories, and he can play the dulcimer. His father was a dulcimer maker. What I wish to stress here is that we are in the presence of an oral culture in which both song and prose narrative have a place and in which the same people or members of the same family may be performing in both mediums. Historical events, espe- cially those tied to war, murder, courting or marriage, entered easily into newly composed ballads, alongside others preserved from across the Atlan- tic. Most of these people were subsistence farmers, who did not expect in- come from their songs or stories. The preponderance of an individual’s ac- tivity in one or the other area, music or storytelling, could change in the course of a lifetime, for a variety of personal or external causes, including market factors or the death of a member of the family who before had filled a given role. When a storyteller tied, a younger family member might fill that role. What are the implications for our thinking on Herodotus and his prede- cessors? The importance of song in the archaic period needs no explaining. However, while rightly studying this song culture, we are perhaps too ready to separate poetry from prose performance in the archaic and early classical period. We need to think more of the interaction of prose and poetry, even in the same people. Is it unreasonable that Solon or Mimnermus, or other Cf. Isbell, Last Chivaree, -. Sheila Kay Adams, another singer, regularly tells tales as well, though not Jack tales. See her book of stories, Come Go Home With Me (Chapel Hill ). She learned her tales from her grandmother, Dellie Chandler Norton, a well known ballad singer, sitting at the kitchen table in Madison County, N.C. Many of her stories she first retold as short intro- ductions and transitional patter for her ballads. Cheryl Oxford, in McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, . McDermitt, Comparison, , Isbell, Last Chivaree, -. Among a number of fine studies, perhaps most useful for general orientation is B. Gentili, Poetry and Its Public in Ancient Greece (Baltimore ), a translation of Poesia e pub- blico nella Grecia antica da Omero al V secolo (Bari ). See also John Herington, Poetry into Drama (Berkeley and Los Angeles ). Herodotus and the North Carolina Oral Tradition members of their families, knew how to tell a good story, as well as to sing a song? Herodotus, we are told, was a kinsman of the poet Panyassis. We may suppose that he heard Panyassis perform his poetry, probably many times, as well as that of other poets. Panyassis is reported to have composed hexameter verses, books, celebrating the deeds of Heracles, and an- other elegiac verses of Ionika. Quite apart from his poetic ability, the length of these poems indicates that he possessed an impressive store of tra- ditional tales on these subjects, and knew how to develop them at length. For the Ionika in particular, which we are told dealt with the settlement of the various poleis, Panyassis also would have had to deal with problems of organization and structure not unlike those faced later by Herodotus. In Herodotus’ family we can presume a reciprocal interaction of poetic and prose narrative forms. The new Simonides papyrus, which confirms the existence of narrative elegy on historical subjects, and indeed on a subject contemporary with the author, the battle of Plataea, also points to closer ties between the poetic and prose spheres than we have been willing to credit. Historical narrative can be found in both prose and verse. We had already known of contemporary historical dramas such as Phrynichus’ Fall of Miletus and Aeschylus’ Persians, but we still insisted on keeping the two worlds separate. Simonides’ elegy in- dicates their closeness. The experience of Appalachian singers confirms that difference in genres does not necessarily mean a difference in cultural milieu. Plato in the Timaeus finds it reasonable to have Solon compose the story of Atlantis as well as write his elegiacs. On Panyassis, see. G.Kinkel, Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta I (Leipzig ) -; G. L. Huxley, Greek Epic Poetry from Eumelos to Panyassis (Cambridge MA ) -; V. J. Matthews,Panyassis of Halikarnassos (Leiden ); M. Davies, Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Göttingen ) -. Note that L. A. Okin, ‘Herodotus and Panyassis’ Ethnics in Duris of Samos,’ EMC () - argues that Panyassis and Herodotus were not re- lated by blood P.Oxy., with commentary by Peter Parsons; cf. M. L. West, ‘Simonides redivi- vus,’ ZPE () -; A. Aloni, ‘L’elegia di Simonide dedicata alla battaglia di Platea (Sim. frr. - W, nd. ed.) e l’occasione della sua performance,’ ZPE () -, C. O. Pavese, ‘Elegia di Simonide agli Spartiati per Platea,’ ZPE () -; and D. Boedeker, ‘Simonides on Plataea: Narrative Elegy, Mythodic History,’ZPE () - , as well as the special issue of Arethusa on this topic (), including an article by Boe- deker on Herodotus’ relation to Simonidean poetic sources. The existence of such elegy had been recognized previously by E. L. Bowie, ‘Early Greek Elegy, Symposium, and Public Festival,’ JHS (), -. On the evidence for historical elegy, see now Boedeker, ‘Simonides on Plataea,’ - . Philip Stadter A second observation about the cultural milieu of the Beech Mountain story tellers can be made. Both singers and storytellers learn their songs and tales as children, most frequently from their grandparents or mothers. Ray Hicks as a child delighted in visiting his grandfather Ben, and hearing from him the tales that Ben had learned from his grandfather Council Harmon. Maud Long learned her songs and tales from her mother Jane Gentry as they were working wool: long hours of picking burrs, briars, and dirt from the wool were made shorter by Jane’s tales and songs. Frank Proffitt Jr. learned the stories from his father during work breaks, after hoeing one sec- tion of a field and before beginning another; Donald Davis from his grand- mother during long visits as a child; and Orville Hicks from his mother Sarah, a granddaughter of Council Harmon, while he was doing chores, and from his second cousin Ray Hicks. Grandparents had more time to tell stories, especially to keep vivacious children occupied, and tedious work could be made lighter by sharing a story. Many children forgot these stories as they grew up, but a few preserved them, to retell on public occasions, or to their own children. In some cases there may be some differences between stories transmitted by men and women. Donald Davis learned from his grandmother semi-magical Jack tales which featured a passive-aggressive, long-suffering hero; from his uncle Frank instead he learned hunting tales and tall stories, encouraging more active responses. We should consider the possible role of the mother or female servants in the transmission of traditional stories and poetry in ancient Greece. Plato has his Socrates ironically compare Hippias’ stories in Sparta to the tales of old women (Hipp. maj. D). Could Herodotus’ mother have told him sto- ries of the settling of Ionia, or the defeat of Croesus, while he was still a child? Was the story of Gyges an important step in a mother’s socialization of her child: a wife was not a possession to be shown off like a new horse? Herodotus does report the importance of the mother’s influence for convey- ing customs and values, e.g., in the story of the Athenian women on Lemnos (..). Herodotus apparently belonged to a prosperous family, and might have been free of many chores, but as a child he would have heard stories told by the women of the family as they wove, even before he joined the men at symposia or other gatherings. Now I would like to turn to more particular considerations of narrative technique and performance. I will comment on a performance recorded by Long: Bill Ellis in McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, -; Proffitt: Carl Lindahl in McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, -; Davis: J. Sobol in McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, -; Hicks: see the information accompanying his cassette tape, ‘Carryin’ On: Jack tales for children of all ages,’ June Appal Recordings, Whitesburg KY . J. Sobol in McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, . Herodotus and the North Carolina Oral Tradition storyteller Ray Hicks of the story of ‘Jack and the Three Steers’ or ‘Jack and the Robbers.’ This version is rather short, about ten minutes on the tape, but suggests some useful features of oral performance, which I will consider under the three headings of texture, text, and context. A transcript of the story is given in the appendix. Texture Even mountaineers remark the distinctiveness of Ray’s speech, the unusual sounds of the words, and his frequent pauses. He is distinctive in appearance as well: about six feet eight and thin, he speaks with earnestness and an oc- casional dry chuckle, punctuating his speech with his hands, or occasionally waving his long arms about like a windmill. When in telling ‘Jack and the Three Steers’ he plays the farmer driving his steers, Ray’s voice becomes di- rectly mimetic—‘Sook, Buck, saw, Buck’ and later when he has Jack imitate the steers’ bellowing. Dialogue allows for variety in delivery, hints rather than full imitation. The characters of the story—robbers, Jack, the woman, the farmer—are clearly differentiated by voice. In other stories witches or ogres have special voices: the witch in ‘Hardy Hard-Ass’ has a high-pitched, but strong voice. ‘The Three Steers’ does not offer the opportunity, but Ray has a unique way of voicing narrator’s comments. He may express amazement at the action or speech of one of his characters with a simple but drawn out ‘Gawd,’ as when in ‘Hardy Hard-Ass,’ Will refuses to give food to the beggar. Later in the same story, his voice sounds awestruck as he re- ports the magic meal Jack eats with the beggar who will befriend him. Ray normally does not smile, but will if his audience smiles or laughs, and then Ray Hicks Telling Four Traditional ‘Jack Tales’ (Folk-Legacy Records, Sharon CN, ). The story is tale type , the Master Thief, in Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, The Types of the Folktale (FF Communication , Helsinki ). Another similar tale of thievery is ‘Jack and the Old Rich Man,’ also told as ‘Jack and the Doctor’s Girl,’ a ver- sion of which is told by Frank Proffitt, Jr. in McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, -. There are several English variants of this type in K. M. Briggs, Dictionary of British Folk Tales in the English Language (London -, vols. in ). See also E. W. Baughman, Type and Motif Index of the Folktales of England and North America (The Hague ), under Type . The ‘Rhampsinitus and the thief’ story in Herodotus . belongs to the same tale type. The terms are those of Alan Dundes, cf. note above. Texture refers to the linguis- tic features, including stress,pitch, tone, and onomatopoeia; text to the single telling of a folklore item; context to the specific social situation in which the particular item is em- ployed. McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, . McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, . Philip Stadter perhaps he will repeat the phrase or intensify it, as he does here with the farmer looking for the shoe in the road. The story is told in cola rather than in sentences, with frequent repeti- tion as the teller searches for the right word, or goes back to introduce a de- tail. This repetition, which does not seem to impede the story, is common even with stories the teller knows well, and points to the recreation of the story as it is told, rather than a simple recitation of a memorized text. The repetition, although different in form, recalls Herodotus’ technique in his written text of repeating a preceding verb as a participle in the following sentence. Other repetitions create refrains and emphasize the structure of the story, like the robbers’ ‘Dead men tells no tales’ or the farmer’s ‘Sook, Buck.’ Hicks’ frequent pauses create a kind of free verse. They do not con- flict with syntactic units, but in some passages come more often than the syntax requires. Pauses occur most frequently after the subject is stated, to permit clarification, or create narrative suspense. This recording, however, does not convey what is so evident in performance: the long pauses, as the teller contemplates the situation Jack is in, the bursts of laughter, and of course the facial expressions and gestures. Armed with this experience of oral performance of traditional tales, we must imagine Herodotus performing one of his stories, before it was fixed in the written text. As with Ray Hicks, Herodotus’ dialect would have affected both the au- dience’s comprehension and the way they interpreted what they heard: it would have sounded foreign, somewhat like Homer, bringing an air of Ionia to Thebes or Sparta—and for Athenians, a reminder that this man’s city was subject to their fleet. The Appalachian speaker whenever he or she per- forms for someone outside his community must adjust his dialect, both for comprehension and to appear more educated. Already Jane Gentry had tried to normalize her dialect, especially in the first part of her stories, though once the story was flowing, the dialect forms returned. In this story, for instance, we note Ray alternating between the dialect ‘clumb’ and stan- There are manifold problems in transcribing accurately this delivery, which is gen- erally shared by all the storytellers. See Bill Ellis and W. B. McCarthy, ‘Notes on the Text. Transcribing Jack Tales in Performance,’ in McCarthy, Jack in Two Worlds, xxxv- xlii. This book is notable for its effort to transcribe accurately and present in a typog- raphically clear format the prosody and inflection of the spoken stories. The text of ‘Three Steers’ in my appendix does not attempt this. Cf. the report by G. Kinkead (‘An Overgrown Jack,’ New Yorker July , , -, at ), of Ray Hicks beginning a story at a festival: ‘He slips out his false teeth, lowers his head, eyes shut, and shouts, ‘Jack and his mother was outta vittles, seein’ it hard!’ He screws up his face till his forehead nearly meets his chin. ‘Gosh, oh gosh,’ he whispers, eyes popping, the essence of impressionability.’
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